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A Fan, a Fiancé, a Fellow Athlete

WIMBLEDON, England — Watching Maria Sharapova’s power and precision, the Centre Court crowd at Wimbledon fell into an awed silence Tuesday, one that was broken before or after some points by the clapping of one person. Without a word, Sasha Vujacic was communicating everything his fiancée, Sharapova, needed to hear during her 6-1, 6-1 quarterfinal victory against Dominika Cibulkova.

Sharapova and Vujacic have a telepathy usually seen in old, married couples, never mind that they have yet to set a wedding date. If anyone can understand the loneliness and loveliness of the sporting life, it is Vujacic. As a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, he performed in pressure-filled games in front of large and often hostile crowds and won two N.B.A. championships.

“There is that level of understanding of what it takes,” Sharapova said.

Since Vujacic, now with the Nets, joined her traveling party after finishing his basketball season, Sharapova has advanced to her first two Grand Slam semifinals since her title run at the 2008 Australian Open. The ticket she punched Tuesday to Wimbledon’s semifinals was especially sweet, coming on the surface where she first had major success and on the heels of a career-threatening shoulder injury that shook her confidence to its core.

“I’ve put a lot of work in to get to this stage,” Sharapova said, adding: “It’s great, the fact that I’ve had the experience of being in those stages. But I haven’t been for a while, so it’s a nice and refreshing feeling to have.”

For 60 minutes under the Centre Court roof, Sharapova was her old young self, blasting forehand winners down the lines and serving with the fearlessness of the teenager who stared down Serena Williams to win the 2004 Wimbledon title.

She finished with 23 winners to Cibulkova’s 3 and had 5 aces against 1 double fault, but said she was not looking beyond her next match, against Sabine Lisicki. “Just focused on that particular match and not thinking too far ahead,” she said.

The tennis court is Sharapova’s office, and the focus she brings to her job would be off-putting to many high-powered mates, especially those inclined to see her work as essentially child’s play.

During a hitting session Sunday, her most recent day off, Sharapova was working on her serve, and for good reason. In her first four matches, she had 14 aces and 18 double faults and had been broken 6 times, although she did not drop a set.

Her coach, Thomas Hogstedt, dropped a ball bag the size of an airplane carry-on outside the baseline and left to run an errand, depositing three balls in Vujacic’s hands.

For several minutes, Sharapova struck serve after serve as Vujacic fed her the ball, bouncing it to her as if feeding a jump shooter in stride. No words passed between them. A couple of times, Sharapova got Vujacic’s attention by nodding at him as if he were a ball boy.

Once the session was over, Sharapova collected her racket bag and her fiancé, and they left the court side by side. On days of her matches, Vujacic walks a few paces behind her, exchanging smiles and hellos and handshakes with players, trainers, coaches — anybody who crosses his path, it seems — while Sharapova moves as if wearing blinders.

Vujacic, 27, a 6-foot-7 guard from Slovenia, knows from intense after sharing a backcourt with Kobe Bryant during his six and a half seasons with the Lakers. And while possessing a personality so sunny that others seem to luxuriate in it, Vujacic, like his fiancée, has another side. On the Internet, one can follow Vujacic on his home page on what is described as “The Official Web Site of ‘The Machine.’ ”

“It obviously helps that he’s an athlete and understands the perspective and the mind-set going into matches and being an athlete,” said Sharapova, a Russian who at 24 will be the oldest women’s semifinalist. “It’s quite different to many other things in life and careers.”

Consider the afternoon nap. It is as ingrained a routine among professional athletes as the power lunch is in the business world. Sharapova sounded relieved she had found a partner who did not view her sleeping habits as slothful.

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“I think anyone else would be, ‘You’re going to take a nap in the afternoon?’ ” she said. “It’s really nice in the beginning. It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s the way things work.’ I don’t even need to explain it.”

Vujacic agreed. “Being an elite athlete is something that’s hard to explain if you haven’t done it,” he said.

Being a spectator, he added, is the worst. During Sharapova’s matches, Vujacic sits ramrod straight and taps his hands on his knees. After she ices a point or a game, he raises his right fist and keeps it in the air in case Sharapova glances his way.

Photo

Sasha Vujacic, right, won two N.B.A. titles with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.Credit
G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

Sharapova played her third-round match Monday against Shuai Peng on Court 2, and by the end of the first set of her 6-4, 6-2 victory his baby blue T-shirt was stuck to his skin.

“You can see I’m all sweaty from watching her play,” he said afterward.

When Sharapova watches Vujacic play, she said, she gets “a lot more nervous than I have been in my life.” She added: “It’s a lot tougher to be on the sidelines. That’s what I’ve learned.”

This spring, at a tournament in Southern California, Sharapova spoke of a steep learning curve in understanding the nuances of basketball. It was around the time of the N.C.A.A. tournament, and when the subject of the event came up, she demurred.

“You just spoke a foreign language to me,” said Sharapova, who is fluent in Russian and English, and conversant in French. “I can speak N.B.A. I can’t speak anything else.”

Sharapova’s softer, self-deprecating side emerges when she talks about Vujacic, whom she met at a friend’s barbecue in the fall of 2009. It did not take them long to realize they had a lot in common.

“We’re both big competitors, and we had very similar upbringings in terms of sport,” Sharapova said.

How are they different? “I think he likes to practice more than I do,” she said, laughing, then added: “He just loves his sport so much. I mean, he slept with his first pair of basketball shoes. I certainly never slept with mine.”

With a sparkle in her eyes, Sharapova said, “I slept with a pair of high heels.”

Sharapova was 17 when she won the first of her three Grand Slam singles titles here. After dispatching Williams, the two-time defending champion, in 2004, she looked for a cellphone to call her mother back home.

Seven years later, she and Vujacic are searching for a home of their own in the hills above the Palos Verdes peninsula in Los Angeles. On Sunday, Sharapova and Vujacic were exiting the practice court when they ran into Tracy Austin, a two-time Grand Slam champion who lives in Southern California.

The area is great for single people, Austin said, and then amended herself. For young people, she meant. Sharapova laughed. Even as she edges closer to another Wimbledon women’s singles title, Sharapova is reveling in her partnership.

A version of this article appears in print on June 29, 2011, on Page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: A Fan, a Fiancé, a Fellow Athlete. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe